Join Jesse and Joe at 11:30 on Tuesday, March 1, 2016 at the WAMC Roundtable as we talk about car automation. Android Auto and Car Play (from Apple) are shipping with new cars from many manufacturers now. We'll talk about what's going on including--

Integrating mobile devices with entertainment systems and phones (this has been going on for the last few years)

Using built-in automation (Car Play and Android Auto) -- what they can and can't do (plus why and how)

Turning your car into a mobile hot spot -- how, why, and who do you deal with

Here's a good overview of the state of Apple's Car Play automation as of the end of 2015 (note that some of the 2016 models referenced are now available). It also includes getting started info when you're ready.

It's only the beginning of the year, but a leading contender for the word of 2016 may be dark. Dark is everywhere these days:

Politics: Dark money is money raised by individuals, campaigns and various groups that is untraceable (or traceable only with great effort). Who's spending that money? Who's receiving it?

Communications: Dark fiber is fiber optic cable that is not currently used. Some of it was bult as fiber-optic networks have been built out. Because so much of the cost of laying cable is on the engineering side along with labor, over-building makes a lot of sense: The cost of the cable itself may be only 10% of the total project cost.

Cosmology: "Dark matter a hypothetical kind of matter that cannot be seen with telescopes, but accounts for most of the matter in the universe." (Wikipedia). Is that like this hypothetical bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you?

More cosmology from Wikipedia and the Planck mission from the European Space Agency (ESA): "The total mass-energy of the known universe contains:

Ordinary (baryonic) matter - 4.9%

Dark matter - 26.8%

Dark energy - 68.3% (we won't go there right now -- takes too much energy to get there)"

Technology: Dark software. Mostly unknown but often essential it's all over the place. Sometimes it's used (and occasionally misused or causes problems), and oftentimes it just sits there unused having been created and sold at great expense. Ian Foster at Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago writes a summary of his work here focusing on dark software in extreme-scale projects. (There's a link to the full paper here.) Jesse focuses on the dark software in commonly-used software such as word processors, spreadsheets, website development, chat support, and much more. This dark software represents a waste of time and energy in its development and testing, opportunities lost for end-users who don't know about it or use it, and in many respects, a drain of resources as the same basic utility software is written and rewritten (and tested and retested) ad infinitum.

Here's Jesse's list of some of the major dark software tools you probably have and don't use. People spent hours and hours (days and years often) designing, developing, testing, and updating it. Then you bought it (even if it was free). All that effort is gone to waste unless you use it. And, by the way, chances are it could make your work and play more enjoyable and more useful. Here's a list of what you probably have by product category (not brand -- the issue transcends brands):

Here's a roundup of some of the recent articles about the problem with the Nest Learning Thermostat. The device and its functionality are great, but as this problem demonstrates, problems can occur over time. Was this a case of Dark Software in action? Jesse's guess is "yes," but we don't know the details (see the Nest link below).

Nick Bilton in the New York Times: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold. Bilton also mentions wireless fobs for keyless cars and a class-action suit in San Francisco from Fitbit users.